The name John Tory didn’t mean anything to Dennis Keshinro a decade ago, when the high school teacher handed the politician a flyer about his fledgling charity for youth at a barbecue at a Jane and Finch mall.

Among the little operation’s board of directors, however, it did: Many faces lit up when they heard the provincial Progressive Conservative leader wanted to help.

Mr. Tory has proven those skeptics wrong, says the Nigerian native who speaks in reverential terms of the man who has since become the mayor, a friend, and a fixture at Mr. Keshinro’s Belka Enrichment Centre.

Mr. Tory is a big reason why it was able to retrofit a bunch of decommissioned city buses into computer labs: he helped fundraise with Michael “Pinball” Clemons, and wrote personal cheques when necessary. Over the years, Mr. Tory has played basketball with youngsters, sent them bowling and to water parks, helped with their homework, and once a year takes a crew of them to the Mandarin buffet.

Laura Pedersen/National Post“What some of the kids need in terms of that little tiny bit extra sort of investment in them,” Mayor John Tory says.

There are no signs he did it for any reason but to help. By all accounts, this scion of one of the city’s most prominent families fits that other cliche of old money: noblesse oblige.

His anti-gridlock measures have garnered the most attention of his nascent tenure, but Mr. Tory, who is known for his work with larger charities, has made tackling poverty a cornerstone of his mayoralty.

He talked about it at length during his inaugural address to city council last month. And he’s brought it up several times this week, following the deaths of two men on the street, most recently at a meeting with staff Friday at Metro Hall in which he talked about making the rounds overnight with workers who try to coax the homeless into shelters.

The histories of medicine, surgery, physiotherapy, chiropractic, and homeopathy are littered with discarded treatments that seemed a good idea at the time. Many therapies did not work as designed, but triggered surprisingly powerful placebo effects on the human mind.<strong>Ross Pennie has been a surgeon in the jungle, an intensive-care pediatrician, a specialist in infectious diseases, and a university professor. His books include <em>The Unforgiving Tides</em>, his memoir of Papua New Guinea, and the medical mysteries <em>Tainted</em> and <em>Tampered</em>. His latest novel, <em>Up In Smoke</em>, was just released by ECW Press. He will be guest editing The Afterword all this week.</strong>
As an infectious disease specialist, I became used to working in an area of medicine where diseases are defined objectively, traditional science plays a major role, and there’s little room for emotional or psychological factors in the causation of illness. I would be faced with a patient, a germ, and the characteristic disease resulting from the interaction between the two. I became adept at recognizing patients’ often obscure but telltale signs and symptoms; I confirmed the identity of offending microbes in the laboratory; I cured infections with antibiotics. It was a gratifying endeavour because it was logical, and the laboratory results were cut and dried. As it turned out, there was a lot more going on between me and my patients than I realized.
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It took me almost three decades to notice, but many of my patients told me they were already feeling, “Much better now, Doctor” about the time our first half-hour consultation was coming to a close. They hadn’t yet taken the pills or received the shots I was about to prescribe for them, but their faces were more relaxed, their voices less strained, their eyes brighter, their pain less severe. Clearly, they were starting to heal before I’d done anything “medical” for them. After watching <em>The Nature of Things</em> on CBC television a couple of weeks ago, I now realize I had been launching my patients’ healing processes even before I reached for my prescription pad.
I’m talking about the placebo effect. To most of us a placebo is a fake sugar pill that commands no respect and deceives only the naive or the ignorant. But thanks to new rigorous studies, researchers are learning fascinating things about how the brain works to heal the body through the measurable power of the placebo effect. Given an appropriate milieu generated by a kindly, knowledgeable, and self-confident health-care professional, placebos can cure a variety of real but subjective symptoms. These include pain, nausea, fatigue, muscle weakness, abdominal cramps, sadness, and despair. Sophisticated imaging techniques show that when a person trusts the therapy they are being given, the brain can reroute its signals and cause the body to heal itself: the placebo effect.
Let me use that word kindly again. I’ll add empathy and reassurance, and a firm but gentle touch. And a dash of humour. Physicians have been using those tools for millennia. Since Hippocrates and his oath, in fact. One hundred years ago, it wasn’t the leeches doctors put on your skin that made you better, it was the idea of being cared for that switched your brain into healing mode. Thanks to the placebo effect, many of the treatments and medicines we inflict on our patients seem to work, even though there is little or no physical reason for them to do so. The histories of medicine, surgery, physiotherapy, chiropractic, and homeopathy are littered with discarded treatments that seemed a good idea at the time. Many therapies did not work as designed, but triggered surprisingly powerful placebo effects on the human mind.
This brings me to the Art of Medicine. One of the proudest moments of my almost forty-year career was when, upon my retirement, my medical colleagues said that I stood among the best practitioners of the Art. I now realize that somehow I had learned to optimize the placebo effect when caring for my patients. I’d harnessed the reassuring smile, the soothing voice, the gentle touch in ways that showed I was caring for the patient while I was in the process of diagnosing and treating them. To feel assured that we will be cared for during our illness/difficulty/predicament is a powerful human need, one that opens the doorway to the placebo affect.
There is little doubt that certain high-tech medical interventions work well for diseases that have limited placebo potential – conditions such as blocked arteries, Hodgkins lymphoma, flesh-eating disease, and acute trauma. On the other hand, common symptoms that plague many of us for much of our lives might be better treated by professionals who can help us harness the body-healing power of our brains. Such practitioners have learned to cultivate the Art of Medicine, a modality sometimes more powerful than a scalpel or a PET functional MRI.

He asked Deputy Mayor Pam McConnell to lead a poverty reduction strategy that is meant to come up with targets that can be measured. With the influence the chief magistrate wields, Mr. Tory thinks he is finally in a position to affect real change on this front.

“If you said, is there a main reason I’m in public life, it’s to actually achieve that,” he said in an interview in his office.

The task is clear: A recent report found 29% of Toronto children were living in low income families in 2012 — a tie with Saint John, N.B., as the highest among 13 major Canadian cities. About 145,890 Toronto children lived in low income homes (set at $38,920 for a family of four) in 2012, up 10,000 kids since 2010, according to the researchers.

Delivering more than words will be Mr. Tory’s challenge. Those with a street level view of despair in Toronto have heard it before.

“The poverty reduction strategy is a joke,” Zoe Dodd said this week as she other members of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty descended on city hall demanding more shelter space. “We know what needs to happen, the city just needs to take action.”

Ms. McConnell, a New Democrat, says she takes the mayor at his word. She’s had several meetings with him and dispelled the notion that her appointment was window dressing, as had been suggested. (“I’m nobody’s window dressing,” she said this week.)

She’s focused now on bringing forward a package of “enhancements” to tackle poverty in the city’s upcoming budget. A report in the spring will address the areas of housing, access to services, food security, transportation and employment, followed by a plan to implement the recommendations.

DisneyChris Hemsworth once again plays Thor, but this time around smashes fewer dishes.

“I am not setting up another study group,” says Ms. McConnell, who supported NDPer Olivia Chow in the mayoral race and admits to being a bit surprised when the mayor asked her to be one of his deputies and gave her this assignment.

“I think it’s a bit in his DNA. I think he has grown up very much understanding that he’s a child of privilege, a person with a silver spoon in his mouth, but there are a lot of others around him,” she said. “I think he deeply believes that he can make a difference and my job is to give him a plan that will help him to do that.”

Mr. Tory, a former lawyer, business executive and perhaps the most connected person in the city, traces his work with and concern for underprivileged communities back decades, to when he was in his twenties, volunteering for organizations such as the United Way and the Salvation Army. He’d ask groups to take him to some of the poor pockets of the city, and used what he saw there, in speeches at churches or other community events, to implore listeners to help.

“If you just saw the quality of the housing there, or the lack of quality of the housing,” he said in an interview. “What some of the kids need in terms of that little tiny bit extra sort of investment in them, a little bit of an extra thing to keep them focused on achieving their own ambitions. If you saw how smart and bright these kids were and how they’re ambitious to be all kinds of professions, and if you saw it, with your eyes, I don’t believe for a second that 95% of Torontonians wouldn’t be as motivated as I am to make a difference in that.”

He believes there is both a moral case and a business one to lift people out of poverty.

“Because I’m a conservative, a progressive conservative, I’m from the school that says, well, you can only achieve that if you have a healthy economy where people are investing in the city, creating jobs and that means you have a properly functioning transit system … and it means you keep taxes low,” said Mr. Tory.

But he said he has seen countless examples of how nutrition programs, or housing repairs, or after-school programs focused can make a difference.

He visited a program at R.H. King Academy once. The newcomers had their earbuds in, listening to music. The kids in their second year had been transformed, chatty and engaged.

“I could tell you that story 100 times over,” said Mr. Tory, who although taking on high-profile roles such as chair of advocacy group Civic Action, has been a much quieter, behind-the-scenes booster for other organizations.

“He never show up with media. He actually instructed me, ‘I don’t want to see anything about the campaign at the summer camp’,” said Mr. Keshinro, himself a remarkable man who was beaten up in his neighbourhood at Jane and Finch and resolved to stay and help youth.

“Sometimes people have to accept one another based on what we say, not based on how we look,” he said. “That guy is a politician, I know that. But he’s been here every summer, every March Break, every time we need him on Saturday to have a chat with the kids, to push them to go where they want to go.”

Imagine that you are a mother of a very poor family in Udaipur, India, and that you want to have your children immunized. But now imagine — as the economist Esther Duflo once demanded of a TED audience — that because you are very poor, you have an infinite number of small things to do, from fetching water to cooking food from scratch to running a small shop. In order to get your child immunized, you have to walk several kilometers to a health center that turns out to be closed. Would you bother to return again? Probably not.

As Duflo’s research discovered, the very poor in this sense aren’t that different from people in rich countries. If immunization is convenient, then we get our kids immunized. If water comes clean out of the tap, then we drink clean water. But if immunization were very inconvenient — if it required a day-long walk, more than once — or if all water had to be cleaned with chlorination tablets, then we too might cut corners and forget. That’s why the children of the very poor are more likely to fall ill than children in wealthy countries.

That’s also why there is no need for a complex moral or economic explanation for the low immunization rates in very poor countries: It’s not that poor people don’t understand why immunization is important, or that they don’t care. It is just that they can’t always make heroic efforts to do it. In the developed world, we have come to take all kinds of things for granted — clean water, sewage systems, public vaccination programs — and we have forgotten that in very poor countries, everybody has to live without them, and not everybody can compensate.

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Among people who think about poverty, Duflo’s work is well-known. But reading of recent events in Ukraine, Libya, Burma and Tunisia, I wonder if there isn’t a similar book to be written about democratic politics, since those of us who live in functioning democracies take a good deal for granted too. Our election systems are already in place; our constitutions were designed many decades or centuries ago. So were our political parties, courts, and laws on speech, assembly and press. We don’t have to make them up ourselves or build them from whole cloth. Most of us don’t even think about the mechanics of our political system at all. We just show up to vote occasionally, or perhaps don’t even bother.

Nevertheless, when we watch political systems fail in other countries, we feel superior. Just as the poor are often thought to be lazy or feckless, so those who live in failed states are often thought to be immoral or culturally inferior. “Arabs can’t do democracy,” we say, as if that were a statement that will be true for all time, or “Ukrainians just aren’t up to it.”

But imagine that you are the mother of a Ukrainian family in Kiev. If you would prefer to live in an uncorrupt state with the rule of law, it isn’t enough just to show up and vote. You should also work as a volunteer for an anti-corruption NGO, be actively involved in civic education projects, donate money to candidates who aren’t funded by oligarchs — and all of this while commuting to work every day on a an ancient bus system, working in an office where they keep the heating low to save money, and trying to live on a salary that’s worth less every month.

People who are coping with marauding militias don’t think about property law, even though it’s an issue that should be at the centre of political and public attention

If you are a mother in a Libyan family, you face similar problems. A Libyan who would like to live in a law-abiding society needs to cope with the fact that there are no legitimate property titles in his country — Moammar Gaddafi deliberately destroyed them, along with much else. Unless the property issue is fixed, peace will be difficult to achieve and economic growth impossible. But people who are coping with marauding militias don’t think about property law, even though it’s an issue that should be at the centre of political and public attention. It’s not because Libyans don’t know that it’s a problem, it’s just that they don’t have time.

So next time you read about a dysfunctional state and shake your head at the mess, remember, if you are reading this in an established democracy, how lucky you are: Americans and Europeans don’t have to write their constitutions from scratch in order to elect a government, or change their entire court system if they want justice — but Libyans and Ukrainians do. Ask yourself if you would find that easy.

When we met Pope Francis, it was immediately evident that he exemplifies Christian charity. We have been particularly moved by his statement, “ The Pope has the duty, in Christ’s name, to remind the rich to help the poor, to respect them, to promote them.” These words, which may come to define Francis’ papacy, remind all Catholics that what Pope Saint John Paul II called the “preferential option for the poor” is at the heart of Christian teaching.

We strive to adhere to the Holy Father’s vision, spending our free time donating talent and treasure to the church and its charitable works. Among our acts of service: We have both served on the board of the Papal Foundation, one of us (John) served as the founding chairman of the Catholic Foundation for the Archdiocese of Denver and we both helped found the Seeds of Hope Charitable Trust, a program that provides scholarships to low-income students in failing schools.

But Pope Francis’ words have also led us to support a group outside the church: the nonprofit community associated with Charles and David Koch, including Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce.

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In 25 years of knowing Charles and his wife, Liz, and in more recent interactions with David and his wife, Julia, we have seen them demonstrate a deep concern for the least fortunate. The nonprofits associated with the Kochs, which bear the common mission of advancing free enterprise and free societies, reflect our shared conviction that limited government is most conducive to lifting people out of poverty. The two of us, along with hundreds of other philanthropists and business people, support their efforts.

We believe that Catholic teaching supports our conviction. Known in the church as “social teaching” or “social justice,” it rests on three pillars, as laid out in papal encyclicals: the dignity of the human person, solidarity and subsidiarity. Solidarity stipulates that society should join together in pursuit of the common good; subsidiarity requires that social ills be addressed at the most local level possible.

All three principles are actively under assault by the growth of government and the concentration of power in Washington.

Welfare policy provides a clear example of how federal policies can undermine human dignity. To our society’s credit, the United States has devoted much of its national treasure to combating poverty — January marked the 50th anniversary of the “War on Poverty,” on which we have spent some $22 trillion. Unfortunately, some of our country’s anti-poverty programs are so poorly designed that they harm the poor, encouraging dependency where they should encourage upward mobility.

Some government assistance programs can be more lucrative than work

Pope Francis has rightly declared that “where there is no work, there is no dignity.” In light of these words, the U.S. welfare system can actually deny dignity while claiming to grant it. Some government assistance programs can be more lucrative than work. This unfairly — but understandably — incentivizes some to stay out of the job market, abusing the social safety net designed to help those who truly need help. In so doing, it traps people in the poverty they’re trying to escape.

Washington’s rejection of subsidiarity contributes to this crisis. Every new federal law seems to create or empower a federal agency to regulate another facet of the U.S. economy and Americans’ lives. For the poor, this results in two problems.

First, Washington typically addresses complex social problems with one-size-fits-all solutions. This often creates more problems than it solves. Subsidiarity, on the other hand, recognizes that private associations and local or state governments are better equipped to address most social issues. They have a better vantage point from which to identify and address local problems. And since local and state communities are most invested in the success of the individuals and families who comprise them, they’re more likely to recognize and reform a broken program, whereas Washington’s solution would be to expand it.

Second, Washington’s centralization of power saps the vitality of the wider economy. Washington’s insatiable growth annually siphons trillions of dollars from the economy — some of which philanthropists like us could give to local charities and businesses could use to create the jobs the poor desperately need. Instead, the money is lost in Washington’s alphabet soup of government agencies.

Entrepreneurs must kiss the regulators’ ring or bribe the local bureaucrat at every turn

This centralization — which misconstrues the principle of solidarity by conflating big government with the common good — also leads to the corrupt capitalism that Pope Francis has condemned. The Holy Father witnessed firsthand in South America how capitalism can degenerate into cronyism when government becomes too powerful. There, politicians and bureaucrats hold the keys to the kingdom. Entrepreneurs must kiss the regulators’ ring or bribe the local bureaucrat at every turn. Bureaucrats and businesses also collude to protect politically favoured companies and crowd out competitors — an arrangement that invariably keeps the rich rich and the poor poor.

This phenomenon isn’t found only in Third World dictatorships. It’s increasingly evident in Washington, where corruption, special interests and lobbyists are more prevalent and powerful than at any point in our lifetimes. The poor are an afterthought when there are hands to be shaken, subsidies to be grabbed and favours to be dispensed.

We support the Kochs’ efforts because they are fighting to replace this broken system with a limited, responsible government. They oppose the cronyism and corporate welfare that prop up the rich at the expense of the poor. They encourage personal responsibility, ethical business practices and community engagement. Indeed, given what we have seen, we believe the Kochs are doing more to help the poor than the “social justice” campaigners who so often attack them.

The two of us will continue to devote the vast majority of our money and time to the church and its charitable activities. Yet helping the poor also requires a fundamental change in how our society — and our government — understands and seeks to address poverty. For us, promoting limited government alongside the Kochs is an important part of heeding Pope Francis’s call to love and serve the poor.

The Washington Post

John and Carol Saeman are financial contributors to the Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, which also receives financial support from Charles and David Koch. John Saeman is president of Medallion Enterprises, an investment and management company.

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/12/08/john-and-carol-saeman-fighting-poverty-with-smaller-government/feed/0std535498843‘Great Recession’ baby bust: For some young women, living through tough economic times means they will never have children, U.S. study findshttp://news.nationalpost.com/2014/09/29/great-recession-baby-bust-for-some-young-women-living-through-tough-economic-times-means-they-will-never-have-children-u-s-study-finds/
http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/09/29/great-recession-baby-bust-for-some-young-women-living-through-tough-economic-times-means-they-will-never-have-children-u-s-study-finds/#commentsMon, 29 Sep 2014 20:47:12 +0000http://life.nationalpost.com/?p=142936

NEW YORK — When the economy tanks, women have fewer babies. But what happens in the following years, when conditions improve?

A massive new study suggests that for some U.S. women, living through a recession can mean they will never have children.

In fact, the authors project that among women who were in their early twenties in 2008 — early in the so-called “Great Recession” — about 151,000 will forgo having any children as a result, at least by age 40.

The lingering impact of that recession may ultimately mean some 427,000 fewer children being born in the U.S.

Overall, the lingering impact of that recession may ultimately mean some 427,000 fewer children being born over the course of a couple decades, the authors say.

On a societal level these effects are small. The projected number of childless women is a tiny fraction of the nine million women in that age group, 20-24. The drop-off in births isn’t much for a nation that produces around four million babies a year.

But the results still show “a pretty profound effect on some women’s lives,” said study author Janet Currie, a health economist at Princeton University.

Currie and colleague Hannes Schwandt present their analysis in a paper released Monday by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

Past studies have generally shown women cut back on having babies when unemployment rises. In fact, tough economic conditions including the Great Recession are blamed for a five-year drop in the number of babies born in the U.S., starting in 2007. The idea is that during such times, many couples feel they can’t afford to start or add to a family. The births decline ended with a slight increase last year.

For the new study, researchers used birth records and census data to track the reproductive histories up to age 40 for every woman born in the U.S. from 1961 to 1970. That’s about 18 million people.

To look for an effect from the economy, researchers compared the timing of when babies were conceived to unemployment levels at that time. Only conceptions that led to live births could be tracked.

Research showed a shortfall for women who experience tough times at ages 20 to 24

They looked for evidence that women who defer having children during tough times make up for it later on, ending up with the same number they would have had otherwise.

“We were just trying to measure how much catch-up there was,” Currie said in a telephone interview. When the research showed a shortfall for women who experience those tough times at ages 20 to 24, “we were surprised.”

Currie said many women at that age are at a crossroads in deciding whether to get married and have children. Poor economic times may discourage many women from doing so, and once the economy improves and the women have gotten older, they may be less likely to go ahead, she speculated.

Other studies show that men who take a first job during a recession often get locked into lower earnings for the rest of their lives, so maybe those potential mates become less attractive to women, Currie said.

No long-term effect on childbearing appeared for women of other ages.

Dan Black, an economic demographer at the University of Chicago who had no role in the new study, said the finding of an effect on childlessness makes sense to him.

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If a recession derails a woman’s plans to have children in her early twenties, the prospect may become less appealing later because of things like career considerations or a breakup with her romantic partner, he said.

“Things happen in life. Life can evolve in very complicated ways,” he said.

John Casterline, an Ohio State University professor who studies childbearing patterns, said the long-term effect of the Great Recession on births is small but still remarkable.

“The train leaves the station. If you’re not on it, you’ve missed your chance,” he said. “This is a pretty amazing result.”

With Ontario’s Liberal government trying to increase the minimum wage from $10.25 to $11 an hour, and U.S. President Barack Obama pledging to unilaterally raise the minimum wage to $10.10, the cost of labour would certainly seem to be the cause de jure these days. As many commentators (including myself) have noted, however, using the minimum wage to alleviate poverty is akin to using dynamite to weed a garden: There will be fewer weeds, but you’ll kill most of the garden in the process.

The reality is that increasing the minimum wage will help some workers, who will be paid more, at the expense of many other workers who will either lose their jobs or never be hired in the first place. The reason for this boils down to simple economics: If the price of beef increases, people tend to eat less of it. The same is true for any other commodity, including labour. When the cost of labour goes up, companies tend to hire fewer people. Indeed, when researchers at the Fraser Institute looked at the academic literature on the subject in 2011, they found that a 10% increase in the minimum wage leads to a 4%-6% increase in the number of families living below the poverty line.

Earlier this week, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart attempted to poke fun at the economic argument against increasing the minimum wage by juxtaposing them with minimum-wage earners who were having trouble making ends meet. “If we raise the minimum wage, eventually the market is gonna adjust to that and then everybody’s going to lose purchasing power,” The Daily Show‘s Samantha Bee said to a fast-food worker protesting for a wage increase. The response: “We cannot survive on the bare minimum.”

And herein lies the problem: It’s hard to say to someone struggling to get by on a minimum-wage salary that their employers should not be forced to give them more money, even though there are many more faceless individuals who will have their hours cut, or never get a job, as a result of any increase in wages. The politically expedient move is clearly for politicians to raise the minimum wage. But governing should be about instituting policies that benefit the many, not just a select few.

The problem with many people who argue against increasing wages is that they rarely offer concrete alternatives. Sure the status quo is better than increasing the minimum wage, but it doesn’t do anything to help lift people out of poverty. This is why I was pleasantly surprised to see the National Post‘s Andrew Coyne advocating a universal-income guarantee. “If we really want to help the poor,” writes Coyne, “here’s a radical idea: give them more money. Only do so directly, using the tax and transfer system, rather than fixing wages and hoping some of it reaches them.”

Coyne acknowledges that some people might think, “That’s communism.” But a universal basic income is an idea advocated by F.A. Hayek, one of the leading free-market economists of the 20th century. Indeed, such a scheme may work if money was diverted from the many inefficient social programs we have now, and transferred directly to individuals. While it’s an idea worth looking at, there are many other things governments can do to address the institutional barriers that prevent people from climbing the economic ladder. Here are just a few examples:

Supply management raises the price of many of the basic necessities of life. It’s important to remember that we’re not talking about luxury items here. While $4 for two litres of milk may not seem like much to upper- or middle-income earners, half-price milk would mean a lot to families whose children are forced to go to bed hungry every night.

Trade barriers do the same for many other goods and services: While import duties and quotas may keep a few jobs here in Canada, they raise the price of those goods, making them less affordable, especially to low-income people.

Monetary policy also plays a role in making goods and services less affordable. The Bank of Canada tries to keep inflation low, but not so low that prices decrease. Imagine what would happen if we had sound money. The cost of basic goods and services would go down, instead of up. People making the minimum wage wouldn’t have to constantly struggle to increase wages, because their money would be worth more over time. It would also encourage saving, instead of the current situation, where artificially low interest rates encourage people to go into debt.

If people did save money, more of them would be able to buy houses with loans they are able to repay. The system we have now encourages banks to make loans based on government standards, since it really comes down to whether or not the CMHC will assume the risk for the loan, rather than ensuring the loans are actually sound.

Taxes and regulations also play an important role. Every business that doesn’t open or move to Canada because of excessive regulations or high taxes represents jobs that could increase employment.

Much as raising the minimum wage helps the people who retain their jobs, at the expense of those who lose their jobs or never get one in the first place, many of the aforementioned policies benefit special-interest groups, at the expense of the Canadian public. Supply management, for example, raises the income of a small number of farmers, but makes it more expensive for everyone else to buy poultry, eggs and dairy products.

Conservatives and libertarians should be concerned about the needy and should acknowledge that the best way to help the poor is through free-market initiatives. Until we have a government that is willing to stand up to special interests, we will continue to see governments engage in activities that garner votes, but do little to help those who need it the most.

The thing that always stands out about proposals to raise the minimum wage is how chintzy they are. The government of Ontario, for example, is reportedly about to raise the provincial minimum wage to as much as $11 an hour, which would make it the highest in the country (tied with Nunavut). On the other hand, that’s no more than what it was in 2010, after inflation.

In which case, why stop there? What’s so special about 2010 as a benchmark? Why not $14 an hour, as a coalition of unions and activist groups are demanding? Why not the $16.50 the mayor of Seattle has proposed? Why not the $18 to $20 deemed a decent minimum by proponents of a “living wage”? Why not $30? Or $40?

Don’t roll your eyes at me. As long as we’re picking numbers out of the air (where did that $14 number come from? Because it’s 10% more than what someone at Statistics Canada’s low income cut-off would earn per hour, if he were working full-time. But then why is 10% the appropriate margin? Why not 20%? Or 30%?), what’s stopping us? If there is no demand curve for labour, if we can just set wages at any level we like with no impact on employment, why be so weak-willed about it?

Or is it imagined that above some level, jobs would be lost, but not below it? Employment is generally sensitive to wages, but not for the most vulnerable, low-skilled workers, with the least market power? And how is it that the level at which jobs become a concern is always higher than whatever is being proposed? The premier of Ontario thinks raising the minimum wage all the way to $14 would be too much, whereas $11 would be just right. But who’s to say it isn’t too high as it is?

And yet here we are again, with proposals to raise the minimum wage sweeping the continent. More than 30 states are considering legislation of some kind to that effect, while the president is set to make the issue the centrepiece of his State of the Union address. And where Ontario goes, the other provinces are sure to follow. It’s progress that the inequality debate is now focusing on raising up the poor, rather than tearing down the rich. But there could hardly be a less effective, more ill-targeted way to go about it.

The popularity of minimum wage laws has much in common with that of similar interventions, like rent controls, that pursue distributional ends by means of regulating prices: they allow us to believe we can intervene without really intervening. They seem less intrusive than more overt forms of redistribution. Guarantee everyone a minimum income, paid for by the state? That’s communism. But demand that business pay their workers more? That’s just the market at work — with maybe a little nudge from government.

The problem is that simply fixing wages in law doesn’t necessarily force businesses to pay more. If the price of an hour of labour has gone up, the natural and predictable response is to hire fewer hours of labour, at the margin: either take on fewer workers, or give them fewer hours. Those that keep their jobs may do a little better — especially those earning more than the minimum, who face less competitive pressure to temper their own wage demands — but at the cost of those priced out of work.

This is the consequence of trying to do social justice on the cheap. The concern for the incomes of those at the bottom is a social concern. It reflects a collective judgment of what is a just distribution of income. As such, it is properly a social and collective responsibility, one that should be paid for socially and collectively — not offloaded onto a small group whom we hope to stick with the bill, while at the same time providing them the direct means and incentive to evade it.

It has always been a valid critique of the market that it does not and cannot produce a fair distributional outcome. That does not change just because you tie a regulatory bow on it. Indeed, the minimum wage is particularly ineffective at fighting poverty, as much research has shown: few people in poverty are employed at any wage, and for those that are the issue is typically too few hours, not too low wages. Only a small proportion of those at work earn the minimum wage, and only a small proportion of those on minimum wage work full time. Most are part-timers, second earners, students. So even if there were no adverse employment effects, it wouldn’t make more than a small dent in the poverty rolls.

If we really want to help the poor, here’s a radical idea: give them more money. Only do so directly, using the tax and transfer system, rather than fixing wages and hoping some of it reaches them. Take from the rich and give to the poor, and at least you have some idea of who is paying, and who is benefiting, with less room for the former group to evade their responsibilities to the latter. And you leave wages to get on with the job for which they were intended, which is to see that all available labour is employed.

Whether or not this goes as far as a universal income guarantee, or builds on the success of existing support programs like the Working Income Tax Benefit, the Guaranteed Income Supplement, or the National Child Tax Benefit, the principle is the same. It’s a minimum income that should be our objective, not a minimum wage.

After the last few weeks of wild winter weather, Canadians could be forgiven of dreaming of a relaxing sprawl on a warm beach. The waves roll in; there’s a nice breeze. Unplugged for the week, you lean back, close your eyes. A local child approaches — she’s about 10 years old. She presents some handcrafted bracelets. You smile and say “No, thanks,” but she lingers with a look that makes you feel guilty. So you buy a couple and off she goes. No harm done, right?

Although well-intentioned, tourists can be naive, even indifferent, to what happens behind-the-scenes during holidays. Perhaps this girl is forced to work alone for eight, 10, 12, hours a day to earn enough to satisfy her “boss.” She may venture into bars to find customers. What if she meets a friendly foreigner who tells her he’d love to buy something, but he’s left his wallet in his hotel room?

Globally, an estimated 85 million children are doing dirty, dangerous and degrading work. Nearly a quarter work in service sectors, which includes tourism. Much of their work is informal and unmonitored. The risks are real, especially when these children are invisible to tourists — doing things like washing dishes, scrubbing vegetables, or making up guest rooms.

Related

Make no mistake – tourism can be a positive force. It’s helping many countries fight poverty by providing jobs and growing economies. It brings people together, and strengthens our understanding of other cultures. “Responsible tourism” is also a growing trend, which for most Canadians means considering our environmental impact. We clean up camp sites, we leave towels on bathroom floors to signal we want fresh ones. Yet do we ever wonder who washes those towels?

Many Canadian kids have after-school jobs, but even Girl Guides who show up on our doorsteps selling cookies usually have a protective parent in tow. As a teenager, the tourism industry was good to me. On weekends, I sorted room keys behind the front desk of a Toronto hotel. I spent summers serving ice cream at the CN Tower and selling hot dogs at Blue Jays games. But these jobs didn’t jeopardize my education, let alone my physical or mental health.

In developing countries too many children experience a darker side of tourism. In Cambodia I’ve met girls as young as 12 who were sexually exploited by foreigners. While recovering at World Vision’s Trauma Centre, they were learning to read and write, and also to sew and weave. The reality is they will still need to work once they return to their families and these skills will help them find safer ways to earn money.

In Cambodia I also remember a teenager who checked me into a hotel late one evening. He seemed to be running the place and I wondered if he was still in school. But he was back again to serve breakfast the next morning. It bothered me, and I’m not alone.

While on holiday, tourists should report any suspected child abuse (physical, emotional or sexual) to someone who can take action

According to a recent Ipsos Reid poll, 77% of Canadians said they are disturbed to see children working while on holiday. Apparently we’re willing to put our money where our mouth is – 89% said they would pay more for products that are free of child labour, and 87% are more likely to choose a tour operator or hotel if the company supports local organizations that protect children.

There is also increasing interest for the Canadian government and businesses to look at how they can make supply chains transparent to ensure that children are not exploited. Travel companies should be included.

The next time you buy a vacation, start with some questions. Have tour operators and hotels joined The Code, an industry-driven initiative to protect children from sexual exploitation? Do they train resort staff to recognize and report exploitation? Do children under 18 years old work on their properties, and if so, is this work safe and age-appropriate? Are these children getting an education?

While on holiday, tourists should report any suspected child abuse (physical, emotional or sexual) to someone who can take action. This could be hotel management or even the local police. In particular, if you witness a Canadian attempting to sexually exploit a child, report it immediately through Cybertip.ca.

Canadians can keep wearing maple leafs on our lapels and backpacks. But if we really want to call ourselves “responsible travellers,” we need to consider our social impact on destinations, especially on local children who rely on adults to keep them safe. The little girl on the beach will thank us in the long run.

National Post

Britt Hamilton is a communications officer for World Vision, Canada’s largest international relief, development and advocacy organization.

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/01/13/britt-hamilton-promoting-responsible-tourism/feed/0stdbeach.pngToday's letters: 'A country that cannot feed its own people has no right to preach to others’http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/12/20/todays-letters-a-country-that-cannot-feed-its-own-people-has-no-right-to-preach-to-others/
http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/12/20/todays-letters-a-country-that-cannot-feed-its-own-people-has-no-right-to-preach-to-others/#commentsFri, 20 Dec 2013 05:01:31 +0000http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/?p=139811

Andrew Coyne quotes the federal minister of industry, James Moore, as saying: “Empowering families with more power and resources so that they can feed their own children is, I think, a good thing.”

The Minister may have been quoted out of context, but surely Mr. Coyne could point out that the Minister’s government has hardly been dedicated to this proposition. That’s the real point.

The philosophy and policy of this Conservative government has been to make it more difficult for poor families to feed their own children. More and more “middle class” families are also finding it difficult. Poor families find it impossible. Poverty is less a result of the inheritance of class than the inheritance of poverty. And too many Canadians have bought into the philosophy that if it’s not the government’s role to try to fix this “inheritance” thing by a more equitable social policy, then why should they?

Rabbi Arthur Bielfeld, Toronto.

Even with Andrew Coyne’s bent-over-backwards justification of James Moore’s comments, he missed some very important issues. The measurement used to determine poverty in Canada is far too low — and manipulated for political purposes. The country may have never been wealthier, but that wealth is going to a few at the top, who pay about 50% of the taxes that they used to 30 years ago. How are poor families feeding their children? With foodbanks and by going into debt. The provinces may be responsible for alleviating poverty, but they rely largely on federal transfers for funding this. This federal government takes no leadership in solving the problems of its citizens — unless they are connected with the corporate elite. So, Mr. Coyne, you too, are guilty of not presenting a balanced picture.

Patricia E. McGrail, Brampton, Ont.

Andrew Coyne’s comment on Mr. Moore’s gaffe regarding the feeding of Canadian kids fails to mention the disturbing fact that by election time 2015, the number of children living at or below the poverty line in Canada will be one million. And while he is right to say that feeding these poor children is a provincial responsibility, within that number there will be 400,000 First Nation children whose welfare rests squarely with the federal government. Where is the Harper government’s Policy on Poverty? A country that cannot feed its people has no right to preach civil and human rights to others.

I don’t think measuring a Canadian’s generosity by what we claim on our tax returns is an accurate measurement of our charity.

We give at the office. We drop change in the Salvation Army kettle and countless other charities without standing around waiting for a tax receipt. I have never claimed a charitable donation on my tax return though I have certainly made them.

Canada Post’s own Marie Antoinette — and his 20 vice-presidents

There are two ways to look at Canada Post CEO Deepak Chopra’s comment that the elderly will benefit from the termination of home mail delivery. The first is to see it as Mr. Chopra’s attempt to make lemonade out lemons by claiming that when one is forced to walk some distance to collect one’s mail (that’s the lemons), one will almost certainly become fitter and healthier (that’s the lemonade).

The other way to look at it is that Mr. Chopra is being awfully high-handed and dismissive of those whose infirmities are such that a daily hike to a mail box is a physical impossibility — not unlike an imperious Marie Antoinette advising the starving peasants to “eat cake.”

Considering that Mr. Chopra pulls in the big bucks in his capacity as the head of Canada Post, and has more than 20 vice-presidents serving under him, I’m inclined to start calling him Marie.

Mindy G. Alter, Toronto.

Deepak Chopra should stick to making financial arguments about stopping door-to-door delivery instead of the gratuitous remarks about the health benefit of “regular walks to the community mail boxes” — such walks may be risky for frail seniors. Besides, it is known that these community boxes are not as secure and subject to more theft.

I would rather pay the extra cost of door-to-door delivery than pay for a Canada-wide bilingual program that benefits francophones outside Quebec while restricting anglophones inside Quebec.

Jiti Khanna, Vancouver.

Let’s bring in direct democracy

In your page of letters to the editor about ways to improve our faltering democracy, no one talked about the only real way to do it – by permitting citizens to vote on issues, via referendums. Why not? This is done in some 20 U.S. states, New Zealand and Switzerland? Some systems permit citizens to propose issues upon which they would like a vote. The results have to be followed by the government. Is not that the real meaning of democracy — power of the people?

It is properly called direct democracy — and it works.

Dick Tafel, Corbeil, Ont.

Another option for first-degree killers

Letter-writer Ivor Williams seems overly concerned that sentencing first-degree murderers to a term of natural life behind bars would be “morally tantamount to a death sentence.” Since everyone dies, I guess you could say we are all facing a death sentence. As for putting sentencing in the hands of judges whom we must trust, many judges have lost that trust, resulting in Parliament passing minimum sentencing laws. However, I have a solution that should satisfy Mr. Williams. The sentence for first-degree murder would be 75 years with eligibility for parole after 60 years. Would that do?

Roy Shaver, Wasaga Beach, Ont.

Exotic brew

I love that the Letters page allows people such as letter-writer Simon Dermer to expound on an arcane subject like Black Ivory Coffee (which is “ground from beans that are first eaten and digested by elephants, [then] are harvested from a ‘deposit’ ”). I hope the elephant driver who discovered this exotic brew gets royalties.

Arnold W. Hoskyn, Abbotsford, B.C.

The Inuglak Whalers deserve to win

With so much bad news in your paper recently, I was simply overjoyed to read about the Inuglak Whalers hockey team in Whale Cove, Nunavut, who raised $22,000 for a trip to play hockey with pen pals in Geraldton, Ont. It actually warmed the cockles of my heart to hear that so many people felt strongly enough that these boys should reap the benefits of their hard work. Teacher Andy Mcfarlane should be commended for his dedication to these young boys. What an experience for them and, if they don’t win, they will still have the memories — but I hope they win.

S. Fruitman, St. Catharines, Ont.

‘It takes courage to ask for euthanasia’

The letter from Eli Honing doesn’t give readers the true story of the twins and their decision to ask for euthanasia in Belgium. Both men were 45 years old, deaf and with the emerging blindness. One had a severely deformed spine and had also undergone heart surgery. One of the brothers had to sleep sitting upright as he had breathing problems.

The two of them, strong Catholics, trudged from one disease to another. They were really worn out. It takes a lot of courage to ask for euthanasia.

Hans Bleeker, Breda, the Netherlands.

The deafblind can still enjoy life

While I fully sympathize with deaf persons facing blindness, I wish to point out to letter-writer Daniel Berry that there is life after a person becomes both deaf and blind. I spent several years working with deafblind individuals, some who were deafblind from birth, helping them to live as independently as possible. By no stretch of the imagination could one consider these deafblind young men and women to be in “solitary confinement.” Deafblind Ontario Services (where I worked some years ago) does admirable work in this field.

Edward Abela, Markham, Ont.

Don’t sell our embassies

I agree with John Ivison that beating up our diplomats in foreign embassies has no political costs. But it is an odd approach for a country that lives off trade and a government whose only real specific achievement, by its own admission, is a trade agreement. And when they propose selling off embassies, the Conservative government is not reporting the true costs, as the savings they claim do not include the operating expenses for rented venues after the sales are made.

There is also a soft power in having our international representatives work in locations that provide continuity and have stature.

A better fiscal solution would be to explore the taxation potential that exists amongst the 2.8 million expatriate Canadians, many who declare off-shore tax residence, who use our commercial and consular services. The Conservatives should reverse their own decision to cut in half the visa-processing fee for immigration for political purposes. The loss of proceeds exceeds each year the gains from selling off Canada’s international assets.

John Gruetzner, Creemore, Ont.

Christmas encompasses all religions

Kudos to the Humber College teacher who thought of inviting international students to a Christmas party. I love Christmas, but I have never thought of it as an especially religious holiday.The story of Jesus doesn’t really describe what I, and many people I know, think of as the Christmas holiday we love to celebrate.

First, as someone recently pointed out in a letter to the Post, the trees from the forests of medieval Germany, looking much like our Canadian Shield evergreens, were originally a pagan symbol. Apparently, the fact that they were still green at the coldest, darkest time of the year gave hope to people. Rather Canadian, I’d say.

The Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens’ classic story, can still be seen on a number of Canadian stages every December. Caring for children and the less fortunate also formed part of the lessons Ebenezer Scrooge learned on Christmas Eve. However, these lessons were brought to Scrooge by three ghosts. Do ghosts represent a religion?

Finally, a major part of our Canadian Christmas celebration originated in North America, when, in 1823, Clement Moore, in a town in New York state, published a poem that contained the lines, “On Dasher, on Dancer, on Prancer and Vixen……”

Have a great Christmas holiday, whatever you believe in.

Ruth Cameron, Toronto.

Surprise, surprise, the students at this party at Humber College in Toronto (“mostly foreign students in their 20s from India, Nigeria and Vietnam”) aren’t really offended by Christmas. That is because the whole concept of people being offended by Christmas is a Liberal construct, having more to do with their own perceived sanctimony rather than any real world evidence. My Sikh and other Asian neighbours have always participated in the season, just as we participate in Diwali, no offence intended or taken.

Possibly you have read of the shocking statements on child poverty this week from the federal minister of Industry, James Moore. I’ll repeat them here for the record, with a warning that the contents may be disturbing to some readers:

“Of course nobody wants kids to go to school hungry… We want to make sure that kids go to school full-bellied… Empowering families with more power and resources so that they can feed their own children is, I think, a good thing.”

Mind you, those may not have been the statements you read. What you would be more likely to have seen quoted, from a scrum with a Vancouver radio reporter, would be: “Is it my job to feed my neighbour’s child? I don’t think so,” or “is that always the government’s job to be there to serve people their breakfast?” The story appeared on the radio station’s website under the headline “Federal minister says child poverty not Ottawa’s problem.”

Which was the more representative expression of the minister’s thinking: the part where he expressed support for “empowering families with more power and resources” to “make sure that kids go to school full-bellied”? Or the part where he asked whether it was “always the government’s job to … serve people their breakfast”? The only logical answer is both. He said them together. He meant them to be taken together.

The statements were part of a long, rambling answer which the minister probably regrets giving. He had been asked — challenged, might be better: “Child poverty in B.C. is at an all-time high. What does the federal government plan to do about that?” The question, it is evident from the tape, flummoxed him, and it’s not hard to see why.

One, the rate of child poverty is not at an all time-high. The measurement of poverty is a hugely contentious issue, but by the standard long favoured by poverty activist groups, Statistics Canada’s Low Income Cut-off (after tax), poverty is in fact at an all-time low in Canada, at 8.8% of the population; child poverty, at 8.5%, is just off its low. There remains a particular problem in B.C., with a rate of child poverty of 11.3%. But this, too, is well down from its peak — it was over 19% just a decade ago — and lower than at most times in the last 40 years.

Two, the direct relief of poverty is primarily a provincial jurisdiction, at least as far as social assistance is concerned. The federal government helps, whether in the form of transfers to the provinces, or in benefits delivered to individuals: the National Child Tax Benefit, the Working Income Tax Benefit, the Guaranteed Income Supplement for the elderly, and so on.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIT-NPtSOok&w=640&h=390]

And of course the feds have some responsibility for the general state of the economy, the rate of unemployment and growth, on which the incidence of poverty crucially depends. The reason poverty has fallen so far over the last two decades is in large measure due to the steady growth we have experienced through most of that period.

All well and good. But no one that I am aware of has proposed that the feds should operate school breakfast programs.

All of these were no doubt coursing through Moore’s head in that instant. And in the moments that followed, he attempted to stammer them out. “We’re not going to usurp the province’s jurisdiction on that,” he began. “How one certainly scales and define poverty is not quite an apples to apples comparison all across the country… More Canadians are working now than ever before… We’ve never been wealthier as a country…” And then those seemingly contradictory passages about empowering families with resources but not actually serving them breakfast.

It’s clumsy, it’s ill-phrased, it leaves much unsaid and says much that might have been better not. But it’s also, by and large, true. Social assistance is provincial jurisdiction. Poverty definitions do vary. Both employment and household net worth are at an all-time high. As for the concluding passages: is it to be disputed that, as a general rule, it is parents’ responsibility to feed their kids? Where aid is provided, is it not at least arguable that we should pay benefits in cash, rather than in services — letting families, rather than caseworkers, decide how they should be spent? Isn’t that, in part, what Senator Hugh Segal’s campaign for a guaranteed annual income is about?

Ffour films starring the late actor will be released posthumously, in addition to a television show with Hoffman in the starring rolePhilip Seymour Hoffman was such a prolific actor that he often had several films on the go, in addition to juggling various theatrical commitments. So it's unsurprising that no fewer than four films starring the late actor will be released posthumously, in addition to a television show with Hoffman in the starring role.
[related_links /]
In the weeks before his death, Hoffman had been filming his role as Plutarch Heavensbee in the upcoming<em> Hunger Games</em> finales, <em>Mockingjay</em> Parts 1 and 2. On Sunday, Lionsgate <a href="http://www.deadline.com/2014/02/philip-seymour-hoffman-dead-hunger-games-mockingjay-lionsgate/&quot; target="_blank">released a statement confirming that most of Hoffman's scenes in the films had already been shot</a> — the actor was seven days away from completing his commitment on the project, Lionsgate specified — and the studio noted that his role in the films would not be recast.
[caption id="attachment_139776" align="alignleft" width="620"]<img class="size-large wp-image-139776" alt="Lionsgate" src="http://nationalpostcom.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/hunger-games-hoffman.jpg?w=620&quot; width="620" height="464" /> Lionsgate[/caption]
While it is unclear how Lionsgate plans to work around any scenes in the film's second instalment featuring Hoffman that had not been filmed, the studio also confirmed that Hoffman's death would not affect the films' scheduled release dates of Nov. 21, 2015, and Nov. 20, 2015.
Hoffman also recently premiered two films at the Sundance Film Festival: <em>God's Pocket</em>, directed by <em>Mad Men</em> star John Slattery, and <em>A Most Wanted Man</em>, from Control director Anton Corbijn. The Oscar-winner has been praised for his work in the latter — which, despite the <em>Hunger Games</em>' 2016 release date, is technically Hoffman's final completed role — with <em>Time</em> magazine writing that his work in the movie may be among his best. A Most Wanted Man has not yet secured a wide release date and no trailer has been released, but you can watch a brief clip of Hoffman's work in the film below:
Hoffman stars in <em>God's Pocket</em>, based on the book of the same name by Peter Dexter, alongside Christina Hendricks and John Turturro. Promoting the film at Sundance, Hoffman said that he was attracted to his character for seemingly personal reasons, making a few remarks that take on some prescience in the wake of his passing.
"He's my age and he's dealing with issues you have to deal with in middle age," Hoffman said in an interview about the role. "You realize that, choices you made along the way, you have to shift or change, or you just stay in the dark."
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLAmIO5luuI&w=620]
And finally, Hoffman will star in the upcoming Showtime series <em>Happyish</em> – the future of which, <a href="http://www.deadline.com/2014/02/showtime-on-philip-seymour-hoffmans-death-future-of-his-series-happyish-uncertain/&quot; target="_blank">according to reports</a>, is uncertain, since its creation was largely contingent on having secured Hoffman as the star.
Hoffman was found dead on Sunday morning in his Manhattan apartment, of an apparent heroin overdose. The actor had long struggled with substance abuse problems, checking into rehab in 2012 after a reported 23 years sober. He was 46 years old and leaves behind three children.
[ooyala code="AzeDJpazoOTM3rcdfuOiQp8vU_VB6MOs" player_id="29345e61bd154274ae9287c2b0ea4fe2"]
[caption id="attachment_139778" align="alignleft" width="620"]<img class="size-large wp-image-139778" alt="Jemal Countess/Getty Images" src="http://nationalpostcom.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/hoffman-police.jpg?w=620&quot; width="620" height="464" /> Jemal Countess/Getty Images[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_139765" align="alignleft" width="620"]<img class="size-large wp-image-139765" alt="Handout" src="http://nationalpostcom.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/hoffman2.jpg?w=620&quot; width="620" height="464" /> Handout[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_139757" align="alignleft" width="620"]<img class="size-large wp-image-139757" alt="Jason DeCrow/The Associated Press" src="http://nationalpostcom.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/psh2.jpg?w=620&quot; width="620" height="464" /> Jason DeCrow/The Associated Press[/caption]

To be sure, the minister might have done better to have peppered these with “of course, any amount of child poverty is too much,” that “while we have made great progress, there is always more we can do.” But we are a long way from the sentiments his critics have since attributed to him, of which “are there no workhouses” might give the flavour.

The minister’s statements, shocking as they seem in isolation, were indeed quoted out of context, as he later protested: context, not just in the sense of the words that surround the quoted passages, but also everything we know about the person who made them. Moore has said nothing previously to suggest a belief that children should be left to starve, a fact that would have been known to most of those who cited the story. Yet he was pilloried as if he had.

Because he had said something that was capable of being interpreted that way, and under the rules of the political game, you lose as many points if not more for that: hence the minister’s subsequent abject apology. Perhaps that’s fair enough. He is in the communications business. Staying out of needless trouble is part of his job description. I say needless: this was not a brave but necessary challenge to the status quo, intended to provoke debate. It was an inept answer to a loaded question, the political equivalent of a kick-me sign.

Industry Minister James Moore has apologized for a controversial remarks he made over the weekend after critics accused him of saying the federal government doesn’t have a role in ending child poverty in Canada.

On Twitter, he initially argued he was taken out of context and that the controversy was “ridiculous.”

Speaking to Sara Norman of Vancouver radio station News1130, Moore was commenting on a report that found B.C. has the worst rates of child poverty in the country. While he was technically correct to suggest child poverty falls under provincial jurisdiction, his comments were criticized as “dismissive” and Scrooge-like, especially given the Christmas season.

“We’ve never been wealthier as a country than we are right now. Never been wealthier,” the B.C. MP said in the interview. “Certainly, we want to make sure that kids go to school full-bellied, but is that always the government’s job to be there to serve people their breakfast? Empowering families with more power and resources so they can feed their own children, I think is a good thing.

“I know the cause of fighting poverty is not helped by comments like those I made last week. For that, I am sorry,” he said in a statement on his website. “I made an insensitive comment that I deeply regret. I apologize. Caring for each other is a Canadian ethic that I strongly believe in – always have and always will. Of course poverty is an issue that concerns me, and concerns all Canadians.”

Earlier in the interview, Moore said the federal government was “not going to usurp the province’s jurisdiction” on child poverty.

“How one scales and defines poverty is not an apples to apples comparison right across the country,” he said.

“Prosperity is up, unemployment is down in every region of the country. More Canadians are working than ever before. A million new jobs have been created across this country and through economic growth you create more prosperity.”

The NDP called Moore’s comments “heartless” and “offensive.”

“During the holidays many of us are looking to help our neighbours and those in need. For a Conservative minister to claim that child poverty isn’t his problem is heartless,” said NDP MP Jinny Sims in a statement. “Child poverty has continued to grow under this government, and now they’re saying it’s not their problem. The minister should apologize for these offensive comments.”

According to the report Moore was commenting on, 18.6% of B.C. children live in poverty. The national rate was 13.3%. Alberta had the lowest rate at 9.4%.

According to Campaign 2000, 967,000 Canadian children live in poverty. Campaign 2000 is a movement to support the House of Commons’ all-party 1989 declaration to “seek to achieve the goal of eliminating poverty among Canadian children by the year 2000.”

The spokesperson for Candice Bergen, Canada’s Minister of State for Social Development, says child poverty has fallen under the Tories.

“Under our Conservative Government we have seen major progress in reducing child poverty. Since we took office, there are over 225,000 fewer children in poverty than under the Liberals,” Andrew McGrath said in an email.

Related

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/12/16/james-moore-on-the-defensive-for-poverty-comment-is-it-my-job-to-feed-my-neighbours-child-i-dont-think-so/feed/9stdIndustry Minister James Moore answers a question during Question Period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Wednesday Oct.30, 2013.Screengrab/TopsyChris Selley: Good news on child poverty greeted by same old pessimismhttp://news.nationalpost.com/2013/12/02/chris-selley-good-news-on-child-poverty-greeted-by-same-old-pessimism/
http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/12/02/chris-selley-good-news-on-child-poverty-greeted-by-same-old-pessimism/#commentsMon, 02 Dec 2013 20:47:03 +0000http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/?p=137952

Behold a selection of print and online headlines and subheadlines from recent days: “Child poverty gets worse” (Ottawa Citizen); “Almost 25 years after MPs voted to end child poverty, there are even more poor kids in Canada” (Toronto Star); “Canada losing war on child poverty” (Regina Leader-Post). The New Democrats chimed in with their obligatory press release: “Under the Conservatives no progress has been made,” it claimed.

“Grossly misleading” is the kindest word for it. All of the above-linked stories are about Campaign 2000’s latest annual report card on child poverty. And it’s pretty hard to misinterpret. On page three, it states quite clearly: “The most recent statistics [from 2011] indicate that 967,000 children — one in seven children — still lives in poverty, down very slightly from 979,000 in 2010.” (My italics.)

Repeat: Down, not up. Better, not worse.

It is true, as the Citizen reported, that “more children and their families lived in poverty as of 2011 than they did in 1989, when the House of Commons unanimously resolved to end child poverty in Canada by the year 2000.” But according to the metric in question — the after-tax low-income measure (LIM), which measures adjusted household income against 50% of the median — 2011 saw the fewest Canadian children living in poverty since 1989: 967,000, or 14.3% (compared to 912,000, or 13.7% in 1989). It was the third straight year of decline, which hasn’t happened in 20 years.

Nor was it dropping back towards normal from a recent high blip. Child poverty as measured by the LIM peaked most recently in 2004, at 16.7%; since then it has declined every year save two, when it only rose a combined 0.4 percentage points.

Now, it wasn’t MPs’ stated intent in 1989 to increase child poverty and then reduce it again. They pledged “to seek to achieve the goal of eliminating poverty among Canadian children by the year 2000.” Campaign 2000 wants to hold Parliament to that unlikely and failed goal, not drag us staggering back to 1989. There’s no reason for anyone to be turning cartwheels.

But according to Statistics Canada, between 2008 and 2011, the number of poor children in Canada declined by nearly 70,000. That doesn’t mean job done, should we wish to accept it as such: Not least among the native population, there is real, wrenching poverty in Canada, and it’s to our great collective discredit.

But an impression of futility is a terrible motivator, and Campaign 2000’s 2013 Report Card provides compelling evidence against futility. It is, in short, good news, should we choose to accept it as such. And why on earth wouldn’t we?

BERWICK, N.S. — People in the small, rural community of Berwick, N.S., are organizing a memorial for a homeless man they believe was killed in a fire at a bus stop that served as his nighttime shelter.

Chaplain John Andrew said Wednesday that he was planning a candlelight vigil for the 62-year-old man, who he says had been living on the streets of the town since the spring.

Police could not confirm the identity of the remains found early Wednesday in the burned out bus shelter on Berwick’s main street after they were called to the scene at about 2 a.m.

Another witness told the CBC “the flames were about a foot and a half off the ground.”

RCMP Sgt. Al LeBlanc said an autopsy was being performed Thursday to determine the cause of death and that officers were still trying to notify the victim’s next of kin so they could identify him.

Despite that, Andrew said he’s convinced it was the homeless man.

“Police have not announced officially that’s who it is, but I would say I am 100% certain,” said Andrew, who met the man in 2005 through the Open Arms emergency shelter in Kentville, about 20 kilometres away.

“He’s nowhere to be found and it happened to be in a place where he was known to sleep.”

Andrew, who is the managing director of the shelter, said the man had been living in various locations throughout the Annapolis Valley over the years and would find a “perch” in a community, where he would sometimes panhandle while
keeping people at a distance.

The mood in the town today is one of pretty deep sadness

Andrew said he couldn’t be certain of the man’s name, but he knew him as Harley Lawrence based on information from family members who looked for him a year or so ago. He said the man had lived in a ravine and the garage of one of the emergency shelter’s board members, but refused most offers of help.

LeBlanc had few details about the man, but says police are treating the death as suspicious because it was sudden and it wasn’t clear how the fire started.

A section of the area on Commercial Street where the bus shelter was located had been shut down for the day.
Berwick Mayor Don Clarke said the community had struggled with the man’s presence on the streets, with many calling for his removal or finding ways to help him.

But he said the feeling was much different Wednesday.

“The mood in the town today is one of pretty deep sadness,” he said. “It’s almost a sense of loss. … This man seems to have fallen through the cracks.”

Andrew said his group was waiting for more information from police, but planned to hold the vigil in the centre of Berwick on Saturday.

The problem with people who believe that government is the solution to all problems, is that even when confronted with the negative unintended consequences of one government policy, their solution is even more government.

Take the issue of supply management. In June of 2012, the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy and the Macdonald-Laurier Institute both released studies on the effect this system has on the Canadian economy. Both papers concluded that supply management doesn’t produce a net benefit for Canadian society.

Aside from these and other academic studies showing that supply management increases the cost of food for all Canadians, while only helping a small number of farmers, the government’s refusal to get rid of the system has been holding up a number of important free-trade deals that would be of great benefit to Canadians.

Let’s be clear: When we’re talking about increasing the price of food and hampering economic growth, we’re not talking about abstract concepts. There are real people who struggle to earn enough money to feed their families; real people who would benefit from the jobs that are not being created; and wealth that is not being generated.

What arguments could be made in support of such a system? As it turns out, none of them are very good.

Related

In his rebuttal to my recent article on supply management, Maurice Doyon, a professor in the Department of Agricultural Economics and Consumer Science at Laval University, argues that I tell “a simple and compelling story about the price of food in Canada,” but that it “is so simple that it’s simply wrong.”

“If farmers had such power to affect retail prices, why does the retail price for food vary so widely for the same product in the same city?” he asks rhetorically. “The answer lies in the fact that setting prices is not only driven by what the farmer receives for his work.… In short, the wholesale price of food is just one factor in their pricing decisions.” This pearl of economic wisdom is not only blatantly obvious, it’s completely true. What Mr. Doyon misses is just how much information is contained within the price mechanism.

Nobel-prize-winning-economist F. A. Hayek once wrote: “The marvel is that in a case like that of a scarcity of one raw material, without an order being issued, without more than perhaps a handful of people knowing the cause, tens of thousands of people whose identity could not be ascertained by months of investigation, are made to use the material or its products more sparingly; i.e., they move in the right direction.”

If, for example, there is a shortage of chicken, the lack of supply will cause the price to rise, which in turn will cause many consumers to switch to alternatives, such as beef and pork. If the chicken shortage lasts long enough, it sends a signal to producers that there is money to made in the industry. Farms will expand, new farmers will enter the market and producers in other countries will begin exporting their chickens.

The information that the price mechanism conveys is what allows complex economies, such as ours, to function smoothly. The lack of the price mechanism is what forced Soviets to stand in line for hours to get stale bread and shoes that didn’t fit. Supply management distorts the price signal and sends false information to the marketplace by artificially raising the price of certain commodities. But try telling this to central planners.

Mr. Doyon argues that “Even if ending supply management lowers the wholesale price of food, only someone who is naive would expect these for-profit companies to pass along the savings.” Call me naive, but that is exactly what would happen. Ending supply management must come part and parcel with removing tariffs on foreign imports. Canadian distributors may not want to lower their prices, but the influx of cheaper foreign goods will force them to sell their products at market price.

The other argument Mr. Doyon posits is that Canadians are increasingly demanding local foods, and under “supply management, the eggs and poultry Canadians buy in the grocery store are almost guaranteed to be local.” Even though their logic is misguided, I have no problem with Canadians who want to eat locally. We should all have a problem with people who force us to eat locally.

The beauty of the market is that if people want a certain product, such as local food, there will be someone to supply it. Forcing everyone to conform to the government’s vision of what people should eat limits choice, increases costs and hurts the economy. If Mr. Doyon really wants to see the “benefits” of a centrally planned food supply, he should take a trip to North Korea (I’m sure they have wonderful local cuisine), or talk to someone who grew up in the Soviet Union.

As for helping struggling Canadians, the solution is not to institute “government policies that raise their incomes” — i.e., give them other people’s money. The solution is to end government policies that increase the price of basic necessities, and institute policies, such as freer trade, that will help pump money into the economy and create new jobs. Ending supply management would be a great first step.

TORONTO — Dealing with poverty takes up so much mental energy that the poor have less brain power for making decisions and taking steps to overcome their financial difficulties, a study suggests.

The research, published Thursday in the journal Science, concludes that a person’s cognitive abilities can be diminished by such nagging concerns as hanging on to a place to live and having enough money to feed their families.

As a result, there is less “mental bandwidth” left over for education, training, time-management and other steps that could help break the cycle of poverty, the researchers contend.

“Previous accounts of poverty have blamed the poor for their personal failings, or an environment that is not conducive to success,” said Jiaying Zhao of the University of British Columbia, who led the study, conducted while she was a graduate student at Princeton University.

If you are poor, you’re more error prone and errors cost you more dearly. It’s hard to find a way out.

“We’re arguing that being poor can impair cognitive functioning, which hinders individuals’ ability to make good decisions and can cause further poverty,” she said.

The study had two parts. In the first, about 400 people at a New Jersey mall were randomly selected to take part in a number of standard cognitive and logic tests. The participants’ annual family income ranged from $20,000 to $160,000, with a median of $70,000.

Subjects took the computer-based tests after being presented with a hypothetical financial problem that they would later have to solve: how they would come up with the money to pay for having their car fixed when the cost was either $150 or $1,500.

With the lower amount on their minds, those with low incomes fared as well on the tests as better-off participants. But when the amount was 10 times higher, low-income subjects performed far more poorly on the tests, said Zhao.

On average, a person preoccupied with money problems showed a reduction in cognitive function equivalent to a 13-point drop in IQ or the loss of a night’s sleep.

“It’s a big jump,” she said of the dip in IQ. “It pushes you from average (intelligence) to borderline (mental disability).”

In the second study, the researchers went into the field to test their theory in a real-life situation — with about 460 sugarcane farmers in 54 Indian villages who earn all their yearly income at the time of the annual harvest.

“That creates interesting dynamics because in the months before the harvest, they’re really poor, they’re running out,” Zhao said. “Whereas, in the months right after the harvest, they’re rich.

“So you can literally look within the same individual at how he or she performs when poor versus when rich.”

The researchers found that farmers showed diminished cognitive performance before getting paid for their harvest, compared to after the sugarcane crop was gathered in, when they had greater wealth.

They said these changes in cognitive abilities could not be explained by differences in nutrition, physical exertion or stress.

“So the very context of not having enough resources impedes your cognitive function,” Zhao said. That reduces a person’s mental ability to address elements that could help them break out of poverty, for instance, a higher level of education, a better-paying job and enrolment in social programs to help attain those goals.

“You are simply unable to notice those things when you are preoccupied by poverty concerns.”

The fallout from neglecting other areas of life can exacerbate already trying financial woes, said co-author Eldar Shafir, a professor of psychology and public affairs at Princeton.

Late fees tacked onto unpaid rent and other bills or a job lost because of poor time management can make an already-tight money situation worse, Shafir said in a statement. And as people become more impoverished, they tend to make decisions that perpetuate their financial hardship, such as excessive borrowing, he added.

The researchers suggest that services for the poor shouldn’t “cognitively tax” them. Positive measures could include simpler aid forms, more guidance for receiving assistance, and more flexibly structured training and educational programs.

“When (people living in poverty) make mistakes, the outcomes of errors are more dear,” Shafir said. “So, if you are poor, you’re more error prone and errors cost you more dearly. It’s hard to find a way out.”

Dennis Raphael, a professor of health policy and management at Toronto’s York University , said the findings are consistent with previous research on the effects of a lack of “attentional resources” among the poor.

“The stuff is concrete, it’s biological and it has consequences,” Raphael, who was not involved in the study, said Thursday. “The good news is it draws the attention of people and it points out that these things are real and that they’re not a result of lifestyle choices.

“So it has the potential for placing these individuals and group difficulties into a broader perspective.”

The downside of the paper is contained in the authors’ recommendations that “services for the poor should accommodate the dominance that poverty has on a person’s time and thinking … so that a person who has stumbled can more easily try again,” he said.

“It draws attention away from the broader public policy and societal issues that many argue are setting the stage for these kinds of problems,” including low wages, poor job security and an inadequate social safety net.

In his column last week, Andrew Coyne used a statistical sleight of hand to portray Canada as a champion in reducing poverty. He takes the lowest point of an economic downturn (1996), compares it to today and says, “Voilà, amazing progress has been made! The percentage of people below the Low-Income Cut-off has been nearly halved, from 15.5% to 8.8 %!”

A less selective use of statistics might have noted that this LICO figure stood at 10.2% in 1989, revealing a much less impressive rate of progress than Coyne’s figures would lead us to believe. At this rate, it will take us another 150 years to eliminate poverty in Canada.

In fairness, Coyne also acknowledges that the LICO not a “poverty line” and is virtually incomprehensible. He also concedes that, according to the Low-Income Measurement (actually the most-widely used international poverty metric), results have been “less impressive.” How much less? Well, the poverty rate is 20% higher today than in 1989, according to that yardstick (12.6% vs. 10.5%).

Conservatives don’t generally like that measure, because it sets the low-income bar at half the median income, which can move over time. “What good is a poverty line if it keeps moving?” they ask. According to this view, we should be measuring poverty in absolute terms, based on a fixed basket of goods. If more Canadians can afford that basket, we’re making progress — and it’s of no importance if the rich are pulling even farther away from the pack.

In fact, Stats Can started producing just such an index a few years back, known as the Market Basket Measure. So, how are we doing with that one? Well, not so hot either. By that measure, 12% of Canadians could not afford the basket in 2011, up from 10.2 % in 2007.

Coyne asks why we are not talking about the “extraordinary” drop in poverty. The reason is simple: it didn’t happen.

This dismal performance at the bottom of the income scale is but one symptom of an economic model that has not been working for low and middle income Canadians. Earlier this year StatsCan reported that the median income of Canadians (excluding the top 1%) rose by just $400 (from $28,000 to $28,400) between 1982 and 2010. This, despite the fact that GDP per capita increased by more than 50% during that time. The top 1% did a tad better, however. Their median income rose by more than $90,000 (from $191,000 to $283,400) during that period.

Related

Business columnists often tell us that increases in labour productivity are essential for higher living standards. Maybe so, but they are certainly not sufficient, and things have not worked out too well there either for working stiffs. Labour productivity increased by some 37% over roughly the above period, yet, corrected for inflation, the median earnings of full-time workers barely budged.

In the final analysis, questions of income distribution, including how much poverty a society will tolerate, are simply political choices. Other countries, while facing the same supposedly unstoppable forces of globalization, have done much better than Canada in terms of poverty and inequality, without sacrificing productivity or international competitiveness.

To take one example, Denmark’s poverty level (using the Low-Income Measure) is barely half of Canada’s and its level of income inequality is well below ours, as well. Yet, according to the Conference Board of Canada, it enjoys higher labour productivity than Canada. It also ranks ahead of Canada in the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report.

The bottom line is that having a more fair and inclusive society makes good economic sense as well.

National Post

Rick Goldman is a Montreal lawyer and part-time lecturer in the McGill School of Social Work

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/07/30/rick-goldman-canada-not-so-good-on-poverty-after-all/feed/0stdpoverty'Shocking' study finds half of First Nations children are living in povertyhttp://news.nationalpost.com/2013/06/19/shocking-study-finds-half-of-first-nations-children-are-living-in-poverty/
http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/06/19/shocking-study-finds-half-of-first-nations-children-are-living-in-poverty/#commentsWed, 19 Jun 2013 13:46:14 +0000http://news.nationalpost.com/?p=325726

TORONTO — Half of Canada’s First Nations children are living in poverty, triple the national average, according to a new analysis of census statistics that pegs the cost of easing the problem at $580-million a year.

The study by the left-leaning Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives being released Wednesday also paints a grim picture of Metis, Inuit, and non-status Indian children, as well as of children of immigrants and visible minorities.

The analysis of census data from 2006 — the latest year relevant statistics are available — finds one-third of immigrant children and almost one-quarter of visible minority kids live below the low income line.

For other indigenous children — Metis, Inuit, and non-status Indian children — the rate is about 27%.

The overall rate for children who belong to none of those groups is about 12%.

“That half of status First Nation children live in poverty should shock all Canadians,” said Patricia Erb, head of the charity Save the Children Canada.

The report points out that poverty is not just a measure of income, noting that status First Nations children often live in communities that are impoverished when it comes to services and infrastructure.

According to the study, indigenous children trail the rest of Canada’s children on practically every measure of well-being: family income, educational attainment, water quality, infant mortality, health, suicide, crowding and homelessness.

“Canada cannot and need not allow yet another generation of indigenous citizens to languish in poverty,” the study states.

“Failure to act will result in a more difficult, less productive, and shorter life for indigenous children.”

David Macdonald, the economist who co-authored the study for the policy centre, said the situation is even worse in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, where almost two out of three status First Nations children live in poverty.

Facebook Flooding and sewer backups have plunged two northern Ontario First Nations into a state of emergency, triggering the evacuation of a hospital and the shutdown of schools, the region’s member of parliament said in May.

To define the poverty, the analysis uses Statistics Canada’s after tax low income measure, which amounts to about $38,000 a year for a family of four.

The report estimates it would cost $7.5 billion a year from either market income or government transfers to bring all children in the country up to the poverty line.

The report suggests that government jurisdiction plays a critical role in the poverty rates, especially for First Nations children.

It urges an increase in federal child benefits but also says the key is to remove barriers to education, training, employment and entrepreneurship.

Study co-author, Daniel Wilson, said the indigenous population is the fastest growing in Canada.

“If we refuse to address the crushing poverty facing indigenous children, we will ensure the crisis of socioeconomic marginalization and wasted potential will continue,” Wilson said.

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/06/19/shocking-study-finds-half-of-first-nations-children-are-living-in-poverty/feed/1stdFirst Nations Idle No More protesters hold hands and dance in a circle during a demonstration at the Douglas-Peace Arch crossing on the Canada-U.S. border near Surrey, B.C., on Saturday January 5, 2013. Aboriginal peoples are gaining ground in Canada's population, but they are losing their languages, according to the National Household Survey.Facebook Brian C. Stiller: Be the new abolition movementhttp://news.nationalpost.com/2013/06/07/brian-c-stiller-be-the-new-abolition-movement/
http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/06/07/brian-c-stiller-be-the-new-abolition-movement/#commentsFri, 07 Jun 2013 04:01:36 +0000http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/?p=119342

Just because William Wilberforce brought British slavery laws crashing down in the early 1800s, we assume slavery has ended. Not so.

Slavery comes in many forms. Be assured, the steel chains that trapped Africans aboard ships sailing to America, and held them in bondage once they got there, are just a more primitive form of the chains that enslave children today.

Meet Arti. She and her family are migrants from Uttar Pradesh, a state in northern India. Living now the village of Shadipur, her mother picks rags and her father begs.

Arti used to beg, too. She doesn’t have to, anymore.

The links in her chain of unrelenting poverty are being broken one by one. Today she is in school — in Third Grade — thanks to World Vision’s Delhi Child Restoration Project. Their mission is straightforward: Teach street kids in Delhi’s slums how to read and write. For Arti, this has meant a remarkable shift in what she does and what she realizes she can do. Her life is being transformed with each class she attends.

And this positive influence is spreading. Before, her family never could save any money. The very idea was foreign to them — they lived each day to survive, and then did it all over again the next day. But Arti’s parents, having seen the changes in their daughter, are beginning the process of lifting themselves out of the prison of poverty, one saved rupee at a time.

These incredible forces — education and hope for the future — are merging. And Arti’s family is being transformed. She is in school — which changes her sense of value and opportunity for the future. Now her parents look beyond their daily, desperate survival. A plan has been born and the future in now seen through a lens of hope.

However, the story hasn’t ended for thousands of other kids like Arti.

Some children carry their newborn brothers and sisters into traffic, zigzagging between stopped cars in traffic jams while pleading for small change

Children as young as six are forced by their impoverished parents to go into the streets and press anyone to give them money. The parents may not have much in the way of education, but they’re masters at making a sale — and their kids learn the art of begging quickly. Some children carry their newborn brothers and sisters into traffic, zigzagging between stopped cars in traffic jams while pleading for small change. The more pathetic they look, the more they can earn.

Sadly, some of these children never make it back home. Others get picked up at traffic stops by sick individuals who pay the children for the kind of services that no parent would wish upon their child. Still, even here there is a glimmer of hope: kids like Arti now can dream. Arti can see herself beyond the bars of poverty. Hope is now a word that has meaning.

It takes changes to government policy and business practices, as in the days of the 1800s abolition

It is for the Arti’s of this world that June 9 of this year is Abolition Sunday, just a few days before the International Labour Organization’s World Day Against Child Labour. It is one thing to support programs like those Arti and her parents benefit from. But it also takes changes to government policy and business practices, as in the days of the 1800s abolition. And this will only happen if the public demands it.

There aren’t enough donations in the world to lift everyone from poverty. But together, between our support for programs like the ones that Arti and her parents benefit from and our continued pressure on our government to do more to end the exploitation of children, we can be the new abolition movement. We can bring hope to a child, letting them see their value in God’s eyes. And from that vantage point, to realize they are meant for more than a life of begging on the streets.

National Post

Brian C. Stiller is global ambassador of the World Evangelical Alliance.

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/06/07/brian-c-stiller-be-the-new-abolition-movement/feed/0stdIndiaWomen become top earners in record 40% of U.S. householdshttp://news.nationalpost.com/2013/05/29/as-moms-become-main-breadwinners-in-u-s-families-americans-fret-over-child-care-report/
http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/05/29/as-moms-become-main-breadwinners-in-u-s-families-americans-fret-over-child-care-report/#commentsWed, 29 May 2013 16:15:27 +0000http://life.nationalpost.com/?p=109363

America’s working mothers are now the primary breadwinners in a record 40% of households with children — a milestone in the changing face of modern families, up from just 11% in 1960.

The findings by the Pew Research Center, released Wednesday, highlight the growing influence of “breadwinner moms” who keep their families afloat financially. While most are headed by single mothers, a growing number are families with married mothers who bring in more income than their husbands.

Demographers say the change is all but irreversible and is likely to bring added attention to child-care policies as well as government safety nets for vulnerable families. Still, the general public is not at all sure that having more working mothers is a good thing.

While roughly 79% of Americans reject the notion that women should return to their traditional roles, only 21% of those polled said the trend of more mothers of young children working outside the home is a good thing for society, according to the Pew survey.

Roughly three out of four adults said the increasing number of women working for pay has made it harder for parents to raise children.

“This change is just another milestone in the dramatic transformation we have seen in family structure and family dynamics over the past 50 years or so,” said Kim Parker, associate director with the Pew Social & Demographic Trends Project. “Women’s roles have changed, marriage rates have declined — the family looks a lot different than it used to.

The rise of breadwinner moms highlights the fact that, not only are more mothers balancing work and family these days, but the economic contributions mothers are making to their households have grown immensely.”

The trend is being driven mostly by long-term demographic changes, including higher rates of education and labour force participation dating back to the 1960s women’s movement. Today, more women than men hold bachelor’s degrees, and they make up nearly half — 47% — of the American workforce.

But recent changes in the economy, too, have played a part. Big job losses in manufacturing and construction, fields that used to provide high pay to a mostly male workforce, have lifted the relative earnings of married women, even among those in mid-level positions such as teachers, nurses or administrators. The jump in working women has been especially prominent among those who are mothers — from 37% in 1968 to 65% in 2011 — reflecting in part increases for those who went looking for jobs to lift sagging family income after the recent recession.

At the same time, marriage rates have fallen to record lows. Forty percent of births now occur out of wedlock, leading to a rise in single-mother households. Many of these mothers are low-income with low education, and more likely to be black or Hispanic.

In all, 13.7 million U.S. households with children under age 18 now include mothers who are the main breadwinners. Of those, 5.1 million, or 37%, are married, while 8.6 million, or 63%, are single. The income gap between the families is large — $80,000 in median family income for married couples vs. $23,000 for single mothers.

Both groups of breadwinner moms — married and unmarried — have grown sharply.

Among all U.S. households with children, the share of married breadwinner moms has jumped from 4% in 1960 to 15% in 2011. For single mothers, the share has increased from 7% to 25%.

Andrew Cherlin, a professor of sociology and public policy at Johns Hopkins University, said that to his surprise public attitudes toward working mothers have changed very little over the years. He predicts the growing numbers will lead to a growing constituency among women in favour of family-friendly work policies such as paid family leave, as well as safety net policies such as food stamps or child care support for single mothers.

“Many of our workplaces and schools still follow a male-breadwinner model, assuming that the wives are at home to take care of child care needs,” he said. “Until we realize that the breadwinner-homemaker marriage will never again be the norm, we won’t provide working parents with the support they need.”

Other findings:

• There is a gender gap on attitudes. About 45% of women say children are better off if their mother is at home, and 38% say children are just as well off if the mother works. Among men, 57% say children are better off if their mother is at home, while 29% say they are just as well off if she works.

• The share of married couples in which the wife is more educated than the husband is rising, from 7% in 1960 to 23% in 2011. Still, the vast majority of couples include spouses with similar educational backgrounds, at 61%.

• The number of working wives who make more than their husbands has been increasing more rapidly in recent years. Among recently married couples, including those without children, the share of “breadwinner wives” is roughly 30%, compared with 24% of all married couples.

• The Pew study is based on an analysis of census data as of 2011, the latest available, as well as interviews with 1,003 adults by cellphone or landline from April 25 to 28. The Pew poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

Across Africa, an extraordinary natural resources boom is underway. Energy and mineral extraction is driving economic growth on the continent. New exploration, new discoveries and no let-up in global demand mean Africa has a unique opportunity to deliver prosperity and opportunity for its citizens.

As you would expect from a country at the centre of the world’s mining industry, Canada is playing a major role. Eight of the countries where Canadian mining assets exceed $1-billion are in Africa. But this also places a special responsibility on Canada to ensure Africa benefits as well.

For while Africa’s economic growth at an average 5% per year for the past decade has been impressive, this success has not been translated into improvements in the lives of its citizens. African countries are not getting a fair share of the revenues from the mining activities within their borders. Weak African governance can mean the money which is paid is not used effectively to improve public services or create employment.

The result is that poverty is still widespread. Youth unemployment is rising steadily. With Africa’s population set to increase three-fold between 2000 and 2050, this is deeply worrying.

In a report released last week, the Africa Progress Panel sets out a comprehensive package of reforms for African governments, the international community and global businesses to put this right. At their heart is the urgent need to improve transparency to prevent corruption, discourage unfair behaviour and increase accountability.

Across the African continent, momentum is already building for greater transparency. More African governments are making contracts on oil and minerals publicly available. Many major mining companies have strengthened their transparency and accountability standards. Civil society is successfully pushing for greater clarity.

Extensive use of tax havens, shell companies and multi-layered company structures operating across tax jurisdictions creates an impenetrable barrier of secrecy

Many of these initiatives have been voluntary. But new legislation in the European Union and the United States makes an enormous step forward by requiring listed extractive companies to report significant payments to governments. These rules, which campaigners like me have been urging for years, will shine a cleansing light on financial relationships.

We urgently need the Canadian government to follow this lead and enact similar legislation. By doing so, it would create huge momentum for a new global standard. Canada should also join the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), a decision the United States and Australia have both recently taken. Canada can no longer afford to stall in these areas.

Transparency must extend to company ownership as well. Extensive use of tax havens, shell companies and multi-layered company structures operating across tax jurisdictions creates an impenetrable barrier of secrecy.

Many extractive companies operating in resource-rich countries typically make extensive use of companies in offshore centres of low-tax havens to minimise the stated profit and hence their tax liability

Canada must also work with other G8 governments to commit each country to full disclosure of the beneficial ownership of registered companies, with a commitment to create public registries before the 2014 G8 summit.

There is no need for caution. Transparency is good for business. It shows that companies have nothing to hide and that they recognise long-term success depends on behaving fairly and ethically. Transparency builds trust with local communities as well. It is why respected Canadian companies such as Barrick, Kinross and Pacific Rubiales already support the EITI voluntarily.

As a G8 member, Canada must also show leadership in the development of a credible and effective multilateral response to tax evasion and avoidance. Tax avoidance, including trade mispricing, has become a major concern for analysts covering Africa. Many extractive companies operating in resource-rich countries typically make extensive use of companies in offshore centres of low-tax havens to minimise the stated profit and hence their tax liability.

Canada has an enviable international reputation. But this also means a great deal is always expected of it. By taking a lead over transparency, Canada will live up to its responsibilities, help Canadian mining companies and drive Africa’s progress and prosperity. A fairer, more stable, more prosperous Africa is in all our best interests.

National Post

Peter Eigen is founder and chair of the Advisory Council, Transparency International, founding chairman of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, and a member of the Africa Progress Panel.

Ontario will soon have a new premier, but unfortunately, it appears as though she will have the same old attitude to poverty reduction. A survey of the Liberal candidates’ positions on the issue, published this week by a group called the 25 in 5 Network for Poverty Reduction, reveals that the two frontrunners, Sandra Pupatello and Kathleen Wynne, both endorse developing Ontario’s next Poverty Reduction Strategy. This, despite the fact that by any rational measure, its predecessor has been an abject failure.

In 2008, the Liberals implemented a series of policies, which sought to cut child poverty by 25% over a five year period. The government increased child benefits and social assistance rates. It spent $18-million on nutrition programs and provided free dental care to 33,000 kids. It made college more affordable for 200,000 post-secondary students. In other words, it threw bits of help and money at the problem, and hoped that together, the result would be greater than the sum of its parts.

Not surprisingly, they weren’t. As the five-year plan comes to an end, the Network claims the programs pulled 29,000 children out of poverty — a mere 6% of affected kids. According to the government, the figure is 40,000, or 8% of the province’s 480,000 children living in poverty, (defined in 2008 as a family of four taking in less than $37,000 a year).

Why the pitiful results? Critics claim the problem was — surprise, surprise — not spending enough money. A group called the Ontario Common Front published a study claiming the province came in “dead last” in per-person spending on programs and services.

Religious leaders chided the government for going “off-course” in 2010, when it froze the Child Benefit and refused to increase the minimum wage. (Now that the provincial government’s deficit projections are $3-billion rosier, watch for these groups to step up their demand that more resources be redirected to the poor, Drummond report be damned.)

So why are Liberal leadership hopefuls pledging to continue — or even expand — a policy that has clearly failed to meet its goals? Because it’s easier than facing the truth, which is that increased income redistribution won’t reduce poverty — more jobs will.

It’s a reality the Progressive Conservative government of Mike Harris knew well back in 1995. Instead of boosting welfare rates, the Tories cut them by 22%, while reducing income taxes by 30%, to rein in the size of the state and boost job creation. From 1995 to 2000, the province saw its unemployment rate drop from 8.7% to 5.8%, before inching up again to 6.9% in 2003.

Conversely, under Dalton McGuinty’s Liberal government, the unemployment rate stayed static from 2003 to 2008, after which it ratcheted up to 9% in 2009 before falling back slightly to 7.8% in 2012. Yet unlike the Conservatives, the Liberals raised taxes on health care, small businesses and consumer products, while increasing government spending by 34% between 2003 and 2008. By 2010, that figure hit 55%, according to a report on provincial fiscal performance issued by the Fraser Institute.

In other words, taxing and spending failed to do the one thing that’s guaranteed to alleviate child poverty: create jobs for parents. Lifting kids out of poverty is not accomplished by free dental care, better cafeteria food or higher social assistance rates. Tax and regulatory policies that make Ontario a more attractive place to invest, and social assistance rates that do not discourage recipients from seeking entry-level jobs are the key. Here’s hoping that even though Ontario’s next Liberal premier hasn’t got that message, the province’s next elected leader will.

National Post

tjk@tashakheiriddin.com

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/01/24/tasha-kheiriddin-ontarios-failed-approach-to-poverty/feed/0stdPoverty Rate Rises To 15 Year High